Your last sentence was asking what we didn't understand. Surely that's not what you meant as an answer to our question.

Regarding your "it's possible, if unlikely" that is true of every commercial film released in the year 2013. Yet you are clearly being discriminating here, as I see the nature documentary "Penguins 3D" didn't show up on your list anywhere. How are you deciding that Iron Man 3 is less unlikely than all the other movies coming out this year that you didn't list?

The Avengers coattails argument is pretty reasonable. Iron Man was the character highlight of a movie that did $1.5 billion worldwide. If Iron Man 3 is even slightly more entertaining than 2, it could get a big box office boost.

And if you follow the conversation logically, it's clear I'm referring to the last sentence quoted by Sith Lord gunray, which was in regards to Iron Man 3's chances of hitting a billion. To save you the trouble of scrolling up, I said it would have to ride an incredible Avengers wave (not literally, before you suggest it).

Penguins 3D didn't show up on my list for many reasons, primarily because I didn't have a list.

a guy: iron man is a multi-billion dollar franchise
slg: no it isn't
diggy: he's talking about world-wide
slg: so? it still isn't. what are you on about?
diggy: it should be clear
slg: it's not clear. what are you on about?
diggy: what don't you understand?
wocky: why do you think ironman 3 will make a billion dollars?
diggy: what don't you understand?

When I meant "multibillion dollar franchise", I wasn't speaking of just ONE film series (i.e. Iron Man). I meant MARVEL STUDIOS combined output. The combined worldwide box office take of Marvel Phase 1 is....$3,802,228,026. And to that add the untold amount of merchandising money across different brands/retailers/whatnot. Yogurt knows best after all:

I certainly don't expect IM3 to rake anywhere close to $1B worldwide (maybe not even half of that amount), but I think - no, I know - it will do well riding on The Avengers' coattails if you want to put it like that.

Iron Man 2 was a truly bland movie. The parts that were good were in the first 15 minutes. After that it takes a nosedive. But thanks to Avengers, audiences won't be thinking about that at all. So in the best of all possible worlds, Avengers becomes a reboot for the bland Iron Man 2 and the truly awful Thor and Captain America movies.

Dude, can you please refrain from your disdain of the Marvel Universe movies in this thread? It is getting kind of old. It's ok if you don't like them and would rather enjoy more arthouse fare that'd be able to rake in that kind of box office money, but that's just now how the industry (or rather, the world) works. Can we move along, please?

No. The box office calendar is now littered with Marvel comic book movies. So, the overall low quality of those movies is directly on point about box office potential for the season.

There's no question Avengers was a global crowd pleaser of record proportions. But there's plenty of doubt about whether Disney can recreate that kind of monster hit with its inventory of single superhero titles. Iron Man is by far the biggest Disney/Marvel title after Avengers, yet it has never really been a giant success, and the quality fell off badly between the first and second movies. Thor was a break even film. Captain America not so much. Hulk has never been successful on his own either. The Incredible Hulk was also a clear money loser.

And now Disney/Marvel is reaching deep into the trash can of D-list comic books. Ant Man. These movies will be polluting the box office for decades to come.

My hope for Man of Steel is that it's a serious movie, because I like Superman.

For worldwide box office success, it has to be a very simple movie with lots of explosions and punches and not much talking.

My fear and suspicion is that it'll end up somewhere in the middle, being neither, disappointing both audiences, killing any chance of sequels.

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Avengers had slapstick humor as well as lots of explosions. It's absolutely lowest common denominator entertainment. I don't think a straight-faced Superman movie will win any fans.

If I were doing a new Super-Man movie, I would base it on the Larry Niven short story: Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex. It deals with the problems of Superman's orgasms - of sperm shooting out at speeds high enough to kill his partner and cause structural damage to buildings.

Avengers had slapstick humor as well as lots of explosions. It's absolutely lowest common denominator entertainment. I don't think a straight-faced Superman movie will win any fans.

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I'm fine with lowest common denominator, but if they do that, they gotta embrace that and go with it. It's not what I really want, but no one is gonna watch what I really want, so that's okay. What I'm worried about, though, is that it's going to meander in some moments into some kind of 'out of character with the rest of the movie' pseudo-philosophical musings that is at odds tonally with the rest of the movie, as if to say "look at me, I'm a smart movie!" and it just ends up jarring.

If there are any big hit surprises from non sequel/non comic book land, Pacific Rim could be one of them.

Even though Hunger Games was a remarkably neutered adaptation of the book, the domestic audience for it was huge. And Jennifer Lawrence is bigger than ever, and is going to become an even bigger star than she has already become. I would not be surprised if she becomes the biggest female box office draw of her generation. She has everything. Acting chops, youthful beauty, awards, two franchises, and an offscreen personality that the media seems to adore. She's sort of the anti-Kristen Stewart. Catching Fire will turn a big profit.